Life "Light" (I)

Life "Light" (I) - Sorry, but with our soft shop opening last week, not to mention all the preparation beforehand, of course, I simply lost track of time as far as continuously blogging on a weekly base. -Okay, I am not going to lie, I am still just as much guilty of the common consumer's blind devotion to "light" food items as most health- nuts, but at least, I can say that I have repeatedly given that sore subject a truly critical and profound thought, so much in fact that it has meanwhile begun to bother the Pe- Jesus out of me. Out of that whacky diet hype of trying to strictly keep the suggested daily calorie intake within reasonable boundaries, it was just a matter of time for me to also join that large community of brainwashed worshippers of light foods. This dates back to the mid- 80s with the very first product of that kind made available in little sleepy Austria - which was no other than Diet Coke or "Coke Light" as we still up to this day call and label it. Needless to say, in the meantime all types of supposedly light products have naturally found their way into our shops, stores, marts, malls, etc. as well. Roughly 15 years ago, I began to seriously question the advertised health benefits of that highly infectious "light" craze, especially in dairies and sodas. After all, following the basic principle of balance in life, every reductive measure automatically calls for some kind of compensation of just that eliminated part, right? For instance, take a regular US- standard- sized container of yogurt. Was it formerly 30 grams of sugar, give and take and 20% of fat, nowadays, the lighter and allegedly much healthier alternatives range between 9 and 12 grams sugar content- wise and read 0 to 2% of fat. That's all very well, but what is taking the place of those suddenly so badly stigmatized primary culprits among food components? Exactly, fillers meant to regulate the weight, mind you, the weight of product, in the first place. The doors are hence pushed wide open with respect to digging even deeper into the good old bag of tricks. Except for perhaps a handful of brands that add whey protein to adjust the TARE numbers, the texture of most yogurts basically turns out way too watery which just cheapens the overall quality of an almost rather costly food item. Stripping cheese of its natural fats makes it brittle, grainy and at times even gummy, and the fillers basically just add to the bad taste experience. Skimmed milk not only looks awful but already suggests a correspondingly poor flavor before trying it even. - Quite frequently, I deem the salt or sodium content critically excessive across the entire product landscape. Honestly, for the longest time, I had absolutely no clue how much salt actually contributed weight- wise, both as far as TARE and body weight. More than evidently, the salt trick succeeds time and time again not just for reasons of regulating the packaging weight but quite naturally also for the purpose of preservation to considerably prolong a product's shelf- life. In most of the cases, however, it is usually either the fat or the sugar content that is drastically lowered but rarely ever both at the same time, at least not satisfactorily to the general consumer's taste. This is because one or the other component is still needed to balance out the lack of whichever one is lastly reduced. Let's face it, such is not a realistically fulfilling endeavor because reduction just does not work that way but only through the individual's willpower to sensibly portion his or her meals despite that utterly ridiculous culinary abundance everywhere around here. Nevertheless, in the consumers' defense, I will say this. The commonly used sizes of food containers, cartons and other packages used on this continent indisputably determine the potential for over- indulgence in calories regardless of the more than explicit food content tables attached. Let me again point out the crux here: ultimately, the consumers face the challenge all by themselves once it comes to making choices wise enough to keep both their weight, health and food budget in check. - My problem number one has always been that as a rule my eyes seem to be much bigger than my stomach. Therefore, the latter one is best to be kept full or at least halfway satisfied whenever I run groceries in a supermarket. It appears that this way only I successfully stick to picking smaller packages from the get- go and directly at the source, if you will. - Sugar- free products have proven over and over again how unhealthy they virtually are considering the insulin- deceiving stimulation all those sweeteners initiate. What's more, talk about fillers in this particular context! The weight of sugar can obviously barely be met adequately with anything but empty, useless and on top most likely fairly harmful chemical or synthetical fillers. Anyway, whenever we shove something artificially sweet into our mouths, our bodies are heinously tricked into assuming that a genuinely sweet food item is ingested which immediately triggers the memory for sugar being on its way and consequently requiring the Pankreas to quickly provide the insulin to help metabolize it. What happens, though, the real sugar is just not coming, and yet the insulin is still released into the system. As an all too simple and logical consequence of a more than overly complex biochemical process, the insulin remains stored unused in our bodies for quite a while. Over time, such a recklessly evoked over- productivity in insulin will inevitably lead to Diabetes type II and in the long run also to a complete resistance to our one and only natural protective shield against over- sugaring, so to speak. All for what, we may quite rightfully wonder at this point? Just to cut a few calories here and there which, by the way, we find manyfold elsewhere in the same foods that are so deceptively called light and health- promoting products. Pretty laughable, to say the least! - More about the "light" lie next time.